by Jon Roesser, Weavers Way General Manager

"Classic J-Curve.” 

These were the words of our market research consultant as she described the sales pattern of our Ambler store. 

The J-Curve is this: A retail operation opens and sales kick off with a bang. For the first few weeks, people flood through the door, checking out the shiny new thing in town, scooping up those opening weekend deals and munching on all the free samples. 

After that, almost all new businesses see sales drop, as people get back into their normal routines and the excitement of opening fades away. But as more people break their old patterns, and more people discover the new store, sales gradually rise, eventually above where they started. Hence the “J” shape on a line graph.

Our J-Curve was thrown off a little because of the seasonality of the grocery business. Weavers Way Ambler’s opening weeks were strong as curiosity brought lots of people in the door. Then sales leveled off as expected, rose again because of the holidays, and have now settled back down since the New Year. 

So we’re now in that J-Curve dip. Admittedly, that can be a frustrating place to be. Sales are always slower in January and February anyway — New Year’s resolution diets are the 

bane of the grocery business — so to be at the low point of our store-opening sales pattern at a time of year when business is seasonally slow can be doubly trying. 

Despite this, the trend is encouraging. Since mid-January, sales have risen slowly but steadily — we got an unforeseen boost thanks to the Super Bowl, if you needed another reason to root for the Birds — and last week was our busiest since the holidays. All indications are that as the weather breaks and the seasonal cycle follows its typical pattern, sales will continue to rise throughout the spring.

Good things, as the saying goes, just take time. 

The challenge is that while riding out the J-Curve is all well and good, there’s no prognosticator for how long the pattern takes, and you have to make sure you don’t run out of money in the meantime. 

A traditional business expansion would have investor capital backing it up, providing the necessary financing to support the operation while the J-Curve runs its course. But we’re a grassroots business, so our equity, and a large portion of our debt, comes from you, our member-owners. 

As a cooperative, we rely on our member-owners’ support in the form of equity, debt and patronage to help us navigate the ups and downs of the business cycle. So in the coming months, we’ll be rolling out some initiatives that will bolster member equity, boost operating cash and encourage increased patronage. We do have to improve our financial position to recover the expenditures — which we anticipated and planned for — incurred in the startup of the Ambler store.

Those who want more details about the Co-op’s financial position and our plans for the next few months are invited to discuss it at a Member Forum. We’ve we’ve scheduled three of them for later this month and early April — see the box next to this column for info. 

In the meantime, one thing all of us can do is spend more of our food dollars at the Co-op. On a typical weekday, about 2,700 people shop at our three locations — even more on weekends. If every transaction was just a couple bucks higher, we’d see a meaningful increase in revenue and we wouldn’t need to coax a single additional shopper through our doors. 

I’m not asking you to eat more (especially those of you still adhering to those sales-busting New Year’s resolutions). I am asking you to think of a couple of products you buy elsewhere that you could get at the Co-op instead. 

By the way, if there are products you buy elsewhere that you can’t find at the Co-op, we need to know. While we can’t carry everything on every member’s shopping list, adjusting our product mix to meet the needs of our owners is fundamental to the cooperative model. 

Any Weavers Way staffer can take a product request — even me. Or email Purchasing Manager Norman Weiss at normanb@weaversway.coop with your suggestions. 

In many ways, 2018 is shaping up to be a banner year for Weavers Way. Membership is approaching 10,000 households (we’ll surely have a party when that happens) and we’re on track for record sales in Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill, growing sales in Ambler and another gangbuster year at our Henry Got Crops Farm Market at Saul High School. 

What a joy it is to work for such a dynamic organization! 

See you around the Co-op.